Strong coupling in a microcavity containing β-carotene
Abstract
We have fabricated an open-cavity microcavity structure containing a thin film of the biologically-derived molecule β-carotene. We show that the β-carotene absorption can be described in terms of a series of Lorentzian functions that approximate the 0-0, 0-1, 0-2, 0-3 and 0-4 electronic and vibronic transitions. On placing this molecular material into a microcavity, we obtain anti-crossing between the cavity mode and the 0-1 vibronic transition, however other electronic and vibronic transitions remain in the intermediate or weak-coupling regime due to their lower oscillator strength and broader linewidth. We discuss the consequences of strong-coupling for the possible modification of photosynthetic processes, or a re-ordering of allowed and optically-forbidden states.
Citation
Grant , R T , Jayaprakash , R , Coles , D M , Musser , A , Liberato , S D , Samuel , I D W , Turnbull , G A , Clark , J & Lidzey , D G 2018 , ' Strong coupling in a microcavity containing β-carotene ' , Optics Express , vol. 26 , no. 3 , pp. 3320-3327 . https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.26.003320
Publication
Optics Express
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1094-4087Type
Journal article
Description
We thank the UK EPSRC for funding a PhD scholarship for R.T.G. S.D.L gratefully acknowledges the Royal Society Research fellowship. The raw experimental data can be accessed through the online research data repository of The University of Sheffield – ORDA: https://figshare.com/s/cc4d67677f614c733e3e, https://figshare.com/s/7726f55f7dd7f73f8cee. EP/M025330/1 funding from FigshareCollections
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